Would just like to state, fighting in a spar when at 3 stars -still- accounts for being half dead, even if you aren't being counter-attacked against and even if the wounds you've accrued are 'small' or 'minor'. Half dead is half dead.

I don't know about literally half dead, but it definitely constitues training way, way too hard. Sparring into three-star territory (routinely and on purpose, that is) should be regarded as insane and would in reality lead to crippling injuries if done regularly. It's also incredibly twinky and just smacks of greedy skill-whoring without any regard for realism or reason.

However, the biggest issue with this is something many clanleads can probably attest to: if PCs spars themselves to half health, they're usually not healed back up the next IG day. There's nothing more destructive to a clanlead's motivation than people being unable to participate in clan activities because they were selfishly over-sparring like a bunch of powergaming prats.

As someone who led a clan during the arena era of Atonement, when people were constantly fighting themselves to two stars against NPC opponents with live weapons, and there was maximum pressure on clanleads to bring groups out and kill/scavenge as often as possible, this made me want to hang myself on a daily basis. Twink-sparring isn't quite as bad as that was, but it's the same idea.

If you don't want to contribute to your clanlead's early grave, follow two golden rules when sparring:

- Stop at 4 stars. Preferably when you reach 4 stars, too, not sitting there counting hits to try and stop just before dipping into 3 stars. If you were unlucky and took two high minors and went an inch into 'injured' ten seconds into a spar, you can get away with a bit more than that, but don't overdo it. If you finish with five or six lines of injuries, you've probably gone too far.

- If the clan has a rule about sparring at a certain time of day, obey that. It's there for a reason. A clan can really stagnate if people don't try to be ready for outings in daytime, and the most common reason that they're not is if they sparred in the middle of the night or, worse, in the morning as they conclude that the clanlead isn't online if he hasn't showed up at the very crack of dawn.

Every time I clanlead, this was an open and regular frustration of mine =X. I'm strongly opposed to this...and I'd love if Staff would take a look at maybe adding in a couple crafts to get your weaponskill/style up, so people need spar even less.

Throttle wrote:However, the biggest issue with this is something many clanleads can probably attest to: if PCs spars themselves to half health, they're usually not healed back up the next IG day. There's nothing more destructive to a clanlead's motivation than people being unable to participate in clan activities because they were selfishly over-sparring like a bunch of powergaming prats.

That's relatively easy to fix with some IC guidelines of when to spar and when to be ready for patrol. With the healers, no combat PC with decent con is still going to be in the three or four star range of health the next day.

Throttle wrote:I don't know about literally half dead, but it definitely constitues training way, way too hard. Sparring into three-star territory (routinely and on purpose, that is) should be regarded as insane and would in reality lead to crippling injuries if done regularly. It's also incredibly twinky and just smacks of greedy skill-whoring without any regard for realism or reason.

Since even four skill new PCs have been skill nerfed and any combat PC is more or less useless without familiar/talented skills around the bog, I think that training constitutes not wanting to die as it does in RL.

Oblivion wrote:Would just like to state, fighting in a spar when at 3 stars -still- accounts for being half dead, even if you aren't being counter-attacked against and even if the wounds you've accrued are 'small' or 'minor'. Half dead is half dead.

Unfortunately, this is a MUD which only has a couple of avenues for skill gain. We can whine and cry about the RP of others, or we can all just enjoy the game with its various fundamental flaws that prevent it from being a perfect simulation of RL. I could emote doing calisthenics, cardio, some soft contact, foot drills, do dry runs, crawls, walks, and runs of training exercises and whatever else for hours a day in the hopes that some admin would see my needy thinks and feels and give me a skill increase, or I could spar. If you want your skill gain to be in the hands of busy admins, that's your thing. I'm going to spar. If I spar to 3 stars, maybe the opponent will get a crit and kill me. Then, I'll have to start all over again, and you can feel superior In knowing that you sparred to 4 stars safely time after time.

So, yeah, to sum it up the forum is a place to complain about how others play the game. Get over yourselves. Deuces.

Crafts to bring combat skills up to a modicum of "has a chance at survival" would be the only alternative to sparring for skill gains that I can think of, as it doesn't require admin attention or abuse of the teach command to get anywhere, and can be capped at say, Talented, which is about where people often stop sparring and start going out to do things. I know I immediately curb 50% of my previous sparring in favor of live combat once I get in that range.

Until those crafts go in, this seems more like people saying, "anyone who wants a leg up to avoid certain death is a powergaming knob who should run themselves off a cliff", which is the kind of hyperbole you'll find me using in response to the very fastidious almost-real-concerns voiced to what's in the game right now.

I hope you die right now, will you drink my chemical?

Brian wrote:See, the thing that I admire about WorkerDrone is that he's an optimist!

Alternatively, there'd be even less sparring if Deflect wasn't hard capped at 30 through chargen, as the bulk of this mass training in the first 2-4 weeks of a new character is directed at getting that to either Familiar or Talented for the ultra concerned players.

I still don't really know why the starting values were lowered, considering Amateur values offer very little protection in a life threatening situation, and how little leg up you're given starting out at Familiar, except possibly escaping at two stars, if you know how to navigate and don't get a series of bad rolls.

I hope you die right now, will you drink my chemical?

Brian wrote:See, the thing that I admire about WorkerDrone is that he's an optimist!

Until those crafts go in, this seems more like people saying, "anyone who wants a leg up to avoid certain death is a powergaming knob who should run themselves off a cliff"

It should seem like people pointing out an issue with behaviour that has always been considered wrong and abusive. That's all that was expressed, at any rate, and with very valid reasoning. I don't see where this "I should be allowed to do anything and nobody must complain" movement is coming from, but it's really not something I think benefits the game. There has never been a time when sparring until heavily injured was fine.

I talked to Icarus about starting skill levels recently and it's apparently an ongoing process and discussion to find the right balance. When the game opened, starting deflect was determined by stats with a range of up to two entire levels of variation, which was just way too much and completely gamebreaking. Then it was set to 30 as that's what it was on Atonement.

I don't think that's such a bad starting point -- you're entirely capable of fighting wolves and other such opponents with that amount of deflect, assuming you're wearing reasonable armour. However, some of the other skills seem able to start even lower -- I recently rolled novice dual-wield despite having a great in one of the two associated stats. It also hasn't gone up after at least ten fights, suggesting it was a low novice.

In any case, I think it's better to figure out ways to balance the skill mechanics than to sit and think of ways to defend twink-sparring. It's such an eyesore. I'll make a thread for starting skill levels in general discussion in a bit since the orc forum isn't exactly the most visible place for that.

If there was a viable path to increasing skills other than nearly dying every single week due to the constraints of the "reasonable armor" being P-Quality leather and maybe an P-quality iron hat, there'd be less sparring. That's the focus of my posts, thus far. There are none, because there's a huge difference between going out and fighting wolves, and then running into a single warg in the same area and having it take two dudes down to three or four stars with impunity.

Look that's not really important, actually, I think what I mean to say is there's a number of factors contributing to sparring in general. I have very little comment on "sparring until you hit three stars" other than that there's little else to be done except pray if there was some kind of hard-and-fast rule about it all of a sudden.

I hope you die right now, will you drink my chemical?

Brian wrote:See, the thing that I admire about WorkerDrone is that he's an optimist!

As a note, I was sparring until 3 stars since around the Fall of Osgiliath. Maybe I'm just a shitty player. That said:

You're entirely capable of fighting wolves and other such opponents with that amount of deflect, assuming you're wearing reasonable armour.

I tested this out the other day, and it isn't true at all. Two PCs picked 4 skills, everything started at amateur, fully armored and armed, went outside and fought a single warg (not a warg chieftain, just a warg), which proceeded to rip them to shreds. Granted, wargs are a bit tougher than wolves, but that single warg still nearly killed the both of them.

It's stuff like the above that pushes people to spar to 3 stars. Skills don't start out worth a crap, even if you only pick 4, so you have to twink them up to be even remotely worthwhile in a combative capacity.

ETA:

Personally, I feel like the skills were good how they were initially. I understand that some people started near talented, but that just meant less sparring. Now, with less skills, I'm pushed to spar even more, and I was already sparring a lot initially just to keep pace with the wildlife.

I never spar down that far unless it's a complete accident that knocks be down lower than intended, but seriously. You guys overlook so many unrealistic things and chalk it up to "realism vs playability" and then find little pet peeves of your own that you decide are much more important than someone else's peeve that you just dismissed.

No sparring if you can't heal in time for your leader to go out and twink skills in actual sword fights against wolves.

No sparring after you get knocked about and bruised from a wooden weapon.

No shooting across rivers.

No acting tough when you're wounded.

No walking too fast.

No ending a sentence in a proposition.

It's fine though to carry fifty bundles of firewood in your arms.

It's fine to sling an 18 point buck over one shoulder and a full-grown wild hog over the other.

If someone holds you at arrow-point, just rush them because the speeding projectile of doom won't really hurt you that much unless they get lucky.

Etc...

We all have things that annoy us. We should try to chill. If one of your clan underlings is consistently too hurt to go on patrol, treat them as unreliable IC. Or tell them to suck it up, it's just a few bruises, and then when they are out there at risk of dying because they sparred too much, maybe they'll change their behavior because of in game reasons.

Even a somewhat trained PC who had been sparring for a while that I played myself, was able to hit a warg once out of every like 10 hits, was wearing reasonable armor, and still got destroyed by the thing. And, like Krelm, it wasn't some super badass Warg either. It takes a lot of training to be able to survive the outside area with any PC.

Also, no. Three stars is not half dead if you're just bruised to piss. Three stars is maybe hurting pretty bad, with bruises, but definitely not half dead. Half dead is if you're taking cuts and shit that actually bleed. THAT'S when you're half dead. You're just using the stars as a hard example of "this is how badly you're hurt period, no questions".

krelm wrote:I remember a thread on old SoI about damage levels, and the general consensus seemed to be that being at 3 stars with dozens of smalls was not equivalent to being at 3 stars with a mortal/horrific.

This seems especially true with the current engine, where you can heal from 3 stars to full in less than an hour with even average con.

Indeed. Do we not have any SCA heavy fighters here? Those guys beat on each other with sticks for hours every weekend for practice. They don't stop for bruises...only for dislocations and fractures.

MrDvAnt wrote: If one of your clan underlings is consistently too hurt to go on patrol, treat them as unreliable IC. Or tell them to suck it up, it's just a few bruises, and then when they are out there at risk of dying because they sparred too much, maybe they'll change their behavior because of in game reasons.

This definitely stuck out while skimming over this thread.

I -usually- stop sparring at a hit or two into 4*'s. If I know im about to go to sleep or work I might push past to early 3*'s. Is this exemplary roleplaying? In my opinion no, but it sure as hell beats dying to a critter because of low skills.

To me, it makes sense for orcs to fight to 3 or even 2 stars with wooden weapons at times. Why? Because they're not 'sparring' in a sense a human would. When an orc picks up these wooden weapons, they are often out there to prove that they are stronger than their opponent. This isn't so much a friendly exercise, but rather a bitter fight to establish dominance. If their opponent is getting the shit beat out of him and tries to yield, the winning orc isn't under any real obligation to accept if they feel malicious enough to continue beating a defeated opponent for a bit longer before the fight ends. It's still very good form to properly roleplay out your bruises, especially if you end up at 2 or 3 stars.

A really bad sword with a short blade lies here. look sword This sword hardly even a sword. It's kind of really just a piece of metal bent like a sword. Its blade is rather short. Kind of pathetic, really.

radioactivejesus wrote:To me, it makes sense for orcs to fight to 3 or even 2 stars with wooden weapons at times. Why? Because they're not 'sparring' in a sense a human would. When an orc picks up these wooden weapons, they are often out there to prove that they are stronger than their opponent. This isn't so much a friendly exercise, but rather a bitter fight to establish dominance. If their opponent is getting the shit beat out of him and tries to yield, the winning orc isn't under any real obligation to accept if they feel malicious enough to continue beating a defeated opponent for a bit longer before the fight ends. It's still very good form to properly roleplay out your bruises, especially if you end up at 2 or 3 stars.

I disagree with pretty much all of this.

Orcs aren't mindless sports jocks that are constantly measuring their cocks. The pecking order is established outside of sparring. Hurling insults and such after stopping a spar? Sure. Senselessly beating each other unconscious every time they train to establish dominance? No.

Orcs were trained for warfare, they really aren't mindless brutes. So unless you are challenging someone that has personally attacked you or insulted you, or you are challenging some sort of Alpha, beating the shit out of each other every time for the wrong reasons really doesn't fit.

Like a wolf pack the rest of the members know who the Alphas are... everyone else pretty much falls in to the middle grey area until we come up with a "Boss" for every category of job. DungscrapingBoss I'm calling dibs right now.

Last edited by Justanothacivy on Tue Jul 22, 2014 10:57 am, edited 1 time in total.

Things that made me smile:

Icarus wrote:I'm going to kill the next character I see doing stuff like that. I'm not joking.

Justanothacivy wrote:Senselessly beating each other unconscious every time they train to establish dominance? No.

Orcs were trained for warfare, they really aren't mindless brutes. So unless you are challenging someone that has personally attacked you or insulted you, or you are challenging some sort of Alpha, beating the shit out of each other every time for the wrong reasons really doesn't fit.

I'm not saying that players should make every single spar a fight down to KO. Just that there have been instances of recruits fighting eachother with wooden weapons, insults getting thrown out, and then newblood A trying to beat the living shit out of newblood B once he's decided he doesn't like him and wants to put the orc in his place. To me, it felt very thematic.

A really bad sword with a short blade lies here. look sword This sword hardly even a sword. It's kind of really just a piece of metal bent like a sword. Its blade is rather short. Kind of pathetic, really.

I'm not saying that players should make every single spar a fight down to KO. Just that there have been instances of recruits fighting eachother with wooden weapons, insults getting thrown out, and then newblood A trying to beat the living shit out of newblood B once he's decided he doesn't like him and wants to put the orc in his place. To me, it felt very thematic.

Yeah and that totally sounds legit to me too, in that scenario.

I spar till I just hit three *'s. I'm not arguing that just hitting 3*'s is over doing it because it really isn't. Each * is roughly 20% of your health right? If you just dipped into having three *'s you're actually at 60% of your health. That's fine and dandy with me.

Continuing on while at three *'s isn't though. The sheer amount of time it will take your character, on average, to heal a full two and a half *'s or almost three full *'s is a very long time and that I believe where the OP is coming from. If you're to injured to interact with other players... don't you think you over did it back there?

Last edited by Justanothacivy on Tue Jul 22, 2014 11:19 am, edited 1 time in total.

Things that made me smile:

Icarus wrote:I'm going to kill the next character I see doing stuff like that. I'm not joking.

radioactivejesus wrote:To me, it makes sense for orcs to fight to 3 or even 2 stars with wooden weapons at times. Why? Because they're not 'sparring' in a sense a human would. When an orc picks up these wooden weapons, they are often out there to prove that they are stronger than their opponent. This isn't so much a friendly exercise, but rather a bitter fight to establish dominance. If their opponent is getting the shit beat out of him and tries to yield, the winning orc isn't under any real obligation to accept if they feel malicious enough to continue beating a defeated opponent for a bit longer before the fight ends. It's still very good form to properly roleplay out your bruises, especially if you end up at 2 or 3 stars.

I disagree with pretty much all of this.

Orcs aren't mindless sports jocks that are constantly measuring their cocks. The pecking order is established outside of sparring. Hurling insults and such after stopping a spar? Sure. Senselessly beating each other unconscious every time they train to establish dominance? No.

Orcs were trained for warfare, they really aren't mindless brutes. So unless you are challenging someone that has personally attacked you or insulted you, or you are challenging some sort of Alpha, beating the shit out of each other every time for the wrong reasons really doesn't fit.

Like a wolf pack the rest of the members know who the Alphas are... everyone else pretty much falls in to the middle grey area until we come up with a "Boss" for every category of job. DungscrapingBoss I'm calling dibs right now.

I get the feeling someone has some high school resentment of the sportsball players. I like that "sports jocks" are rated lower than orcs.